Well, it's midnight and I can't sleep! I think the last time I was this awake at this hour was when Sadie was tiny and had her days and nights screwed up for a bit. Got back about 45 minutes ago from NYC. Nic and Justin drove me home from New Rochelle which was where Nic had her truck parked.
I had the BEST time at Harry Carrie and Garp! Whoopi Goldberg introduced the program, and she was hilarious. Whoever wrote the script didn't run it by her much -- she kept making faces at the teleprompter and going off on her own tangents ... and finally she just looked at the audience and said "You know, sometimes you just have to skip over things!" Kathy Bates introduced Stephen King, and she was really funny too. Stephen King is a wonderful reader. He read the pie-eating contest scene from "The Body" (aka Stand By Me), and we were absolutely rolling! He was so much fun to listen to, especially with his asides and quick comments during the reading. Later, during the question session, he was aked "What scares you?" and his response was "Everything!" He also explained in a different answer that when he gets an idea for a story, it's "a red thread leading into a mousehole, and you have to carefully pull the thread out of the mousehole..." and the thread is your story, and you can't quite see where it's coming from or where it's going, but you just know you have to get to the end of it. He also said emphatically that "the story is the reward -- not the money!" John Irving addded onto that, saying he would have to check out the mousehole first and the thread and everything about the whole situation -- he has to plan everything before he writes, and then he rewrites everything.
I forget the actor's name who introduced John Irving, but I did recognize his face -- I'm just terrible with names. John Irving read the Christmas pageant scene from A Prayer for Owen Meany, and we were all rolling again! His rendition of Owen's voice was exactly the way I heard it in my head when I read the book: squeaky and high-pitched, but with a tinge of sarcastic attitude. One of the questions he got later was about the inspiration for his book The Fourth Hand, and he said it came from a comment that his wife made when they were watching the news and saw a story about a hand transplant. She said to him that if his hand went to someone else after he died, she's want to be able to visit it -- and then she went to bed and he stayed up thinking about it all night!
Jon Stwewart from the Daily Show introduced J.K. Rowling, and she read the scene from book 6 where Harry and Dumbledore use the pensieve to observe Dumbledore's going to the orphanage to get the young Voldemort to come to Hogwarts. One of the best questions for her afterward was "If Hermione were to look into the mirror of Erised, what would she see?" J.K. Rowling replied after a moment that she thought Hermione would see herself, Harry and Ron victorious over Voldemort, and also that she would be "entwined with another character whom I'm sure you can name."
It was wonderful -- there was a full house at Radio City, amounting to some 6,000 people on the absolute hottest day of the year so far. The stage sets were fun too -- each author had a rolling mini stage upon the stage that was set up with a large chair and some props appropriate to the author. Stephen King's chair was a heavy wooden thing that looked something like an electric chair with an afghan on it, and he had farm kinds of props -- wheelbarrow, etc. John Irving's set looked like a living room, with fake fireplace, giant leather chair, side table and antique-looking globe. J.K. Rowling's set of course had a throne-style chair on it, and the other pieces looked like they came out of a castle somewhere. The end q & a session was moderated by Soledad O'Brien.
It was wonderful to sit with 6000 other people who enjoy books and want to hear from their favorite authors! There were people from all over, including a woman from Shanghai who stood up to ask a question.
This was one of the most fun evenings I've had in the last year (other than the trip to Vegas!).
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